About Me

Staten Island, New York, United States
I've worked in the FDNY for the past 29 years. I've written freelance commentary for the past twenty years and have one book published "Looking Up (A Working View)," Quiet Storm Publishers. For those of you with whom my ideas resonate, we probably share a common love of Liberty. If you like anything you read here, feel free to reuse...just please add my appellation. Life's been more than fair to me and this is a part of my humble offering back. If you have any corrections, or additions, please email me (my email address is in my profile) and I’ll both appreciate and consider them all and do my best to get back to you with my thoughts on it. My ideas are always evolving and I’m open to persuasion in all areas. I thank all those who've taken some of their time to read here.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

A Swiss man’s been sentenced to five months in jail and three strokes of a cane for spray-painting graffiti on a train in Singapore.

The 32 year-old software consultant, Oliver Fricker admitted breaking into a depot and vandalizing a train.

The judge (See Kee Oon) called it a serious breach of security. The judge said Fricker's actions were “calculated criminal conduct,” adding, “He was fully conscious of the criminal nature of the act and must be prepared to face the consequences.”

Caning in Singapore involves being struck with a wooden stick (cane) on the back of the thigh, a punishment that can leave permanent scars. As you might expect, the fruits at Amnesty International have called the sentence barbaric.

Singapore authorities say they’re still hunting for a second man, UK national Lloyd Dane Alexander, who they believe took part in the spray-painting.

I’m sorry, BUT if you’re 32 years old and still spray painting trains and breaking into public facilities to vandalize them, you NEED a good ass-kicking. You're actions are practically begging for it!

Caning’s the least of these guy’s problems. In my view, the sentence should’ve been a caning, followed by a frontal lobotomy and THEN five months in jail AFTER the recuperation period.

2 comments:

Yes, I do....Michael Fay. (I had to look that up....but I do recall the case)

In 1993, a number of Asian papers put out stories about car vandalism in Singapore. "Unknown individuals, thought at first to be residents of the HDB flats in which 85% of the local population lives, damaged their neighbours' cars with hot tar, paint remover, and hatchets. Taxi drivers complained that their tires were slashed. In the city center and the condos, cars were found with deep scratches and dents. One man interviewed by the Straits Times complained that he had to refinish his car six times in six months. In the fall of 1993 a vandal took red spray paint to six cars in a garage off Orchard Lane, making the vandalism highly visible. The next night someone sprayed a line of red paint right through the official seal of a judge's car that had been left out on the street.

"The police eventually arrested a 16-year-old suspect, Andy Shiu Chi Ho from Hong Kong. He was not caught vandalizing cars, but was charged with driving his father's car without a license. After questioning Shiu, the police questioned several expatriate students from the Singapore American School, including Michael Fay, and later charged them with more than fifty counts of vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing the cars in addition to stealing road signs, as he was advised that such a plea would preclude caning.

"Fay later maintained that his confession was false, that he never vandalized any cars, and that the only crime he committed was stealing signs..."

I recall feeling similarly at that time. I've always felt that the destruction of other people's property SHOULD come with harsh punishments AND full restitution, not merely "fines."

I know we laugh it off over here....but we laugh off way too much over here because we've had it way too easy for way too long.